In 1998, I Spent My Birthday Seeing The Damned & Interviewing Captain Sensible!

By Devorah Ostrov

My autographed Damned 45 ❤

In 1998, I spent my birthday seeing the Damned at the Maritime Hall in San Francisco, and I interviewed guitarist and founding member Captain Sensible while he ate his dinner prior to the show. 

The interview should have been published in an issue of Teenage Kicks, but it wasn't, and I have no idea why. I recently came across the transcript in a box, so here it is.

Teenage Kicks: I've read that you put together a couple of bands with your brother before the Damned formed. What were those bands called?

Captain Sensible: Genetic Breakdown and the Johnny Moped Group. Genetic Breakdown was really the only one.

Teenage Kicks: And that turned into the Johnny Moped Group?

Captain Sensible: Yeah... My brother had a band called the Cowards, and they were the original band to do "Antipope." I've got a tape somewhere. I've been playing it.

February 1998 calendar for the Maritime Hall,  

including the Damned gig on my birthday!

Teenage Kicks: When did they do it?

Captain Sensible: God... That would've been about '77. I liked the song so much...

Teenage Kicks: You stole it!

Captain Sensible: Stole it, yeah!

Teenage Kicks: Did your brother write the song?

Captain Sensible: Him and a bloke called Mark wrote the entire song — lyrics, music, everything! But we gave him a songwriting credit. So, we didn't rip him off entirely. Only a little bit.

Teenage Kicks: What's your brother doing now? Does he have a band?

Captain Sensible: He works for the police force up in Newcastle.

Teenage Kicks: I've also heard that Paul Gray was supposed to be back with the Damned, but he doesn't seem to be hanging around. Is his return just a rumor?

Captain Sensible: Well... Dave and me concocted this new line-up after we'd done a gig at the Mean Fiddler in London. Paul Gray was playing in my band.

Teenage Kicks: Punk Floyd?

Captain Sensible: Yeah... So, Paul rejoined the Damned again. But then... We were doing an important gig in London, and Paul arranged a gig in Cardiff, which is his hometown, as a warm-up for the important gig in London. So... Dave didn't turn up for that gig.

Captain Sensible's "Happy Talk" single

(A&M Records 1982)

Teenage Kicks: Why not?

Captain Sensible: You're asking the wrong person. But he didn't turn up, and Paul was very upset. He had a shouting match on the phone with [manager] Chris Ampofo and said, "I'm not working with that..." blah, blah, blah "... again." So, that's what happened there. But in actual fact, he did work with us once more. He did the important gig in London. But that was it.

Teenage Kicks: What's Punk Floyd like?

Captain Sensible: They do my songs.

Teenage Kicks: No Pink Floyd covers?

Captain Sensible: No! God's sake, no! I hate Pink Floyd! They're shit! I like Syd Barrett. When he was in Pink Floyd, they were great. But he was only in it for five minutes and then they turned into the most boring band in the world.

Teenage Kicks: So why call it Punk Floyd?

Captain Sensible: Because it's got a kind of... There's a bit of Syd Barrett in there. It's anarchic and psychedelic. And the punk bit because... Well, my songs are a bit punky.

Teenage Kicks: Will you be able to do Punk Floyd and the Damned at the same time?

The Captain's calling card

Captain Sensible: No. Punk Floyd is on ice.

Teenage Kicks: Are there any Punk Floyd records?

Captain Sensible: We did one called Mad Cows & Englishmen. That's Punk Floyd, really. It's on Scratch Records, but you'll never find it.

Teenage Kicks: And the drummer [Garrie Dreadful] and keyboardist [Monty Oxymoron] currently playing with the Damned are from Punk Floyd?

Captain Sensible: Hmmm... [between chews] Yeah.

Teenage Kicks: What prompted this reunion of the Damned?

Captain Sensible: It was that gig I did with Dave in London. The Phantom Chords and Punk Floyd did a double-headliner gig. And we found out that we ah... you know... kind of liked each other. I always liked Dave, you know. I always liked his voice. I would prefer to stand there and play guitar with him singing, rather than singing myself.

Teenage Kicks: Really?

Captain Sensible: Oh, yeah. I never liked being a frontman. Never liked it in the slightest. Well, I did like some parts of it — like the birds chasing you down the road!

Teenage Kicks: Are the Damned going to record any new material?

Poster for the Damned's 1977 debut LP

Captain Sensible: Definitely!

Teenage Kicks: Do you have anything worked up yet?

Captain Sensible: A lot of song ideas... [lost in chewing and mumbling] Yep... yep. I've written a whole bunch of stuff. Dave's working on stuff. Patricia's [Morrison, bassist] done some stuff. Even Monty's come up with a couple of ideas.

Teenage Kicks: Do you have any song titles?

Captain Sensible: I have. But I tell Dave, "Change anything you want." So, he might change it. But I wrote one about Fergie [Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York]. You won't understand the joke. In Britain, we have a chocolate bar called a Yorkie bar. The song's called "The Duchess of Yorkie Bars." 'Cause she's... you know... It's mean, really.

Teenage Kicks: She does Weight Watchers commercials now. She's not fat anymore.

Captain Sensible: I know! We'll have to scrap that song. There's also one called "Till the End of Time."

Teenage Kicks: That sounds pretty.

Captain Sensible: It's very dark. It's the darkest love song I've ever written. I wrote it for my new girlfriend.

Mad Cows & Englishmen (Scratch Records 1996)

Teenage Kicks: Wait! Rachel Bor [from Dolly Mixture] isn't your girlfriend anymore?

Captain Sensible: She's my official girlfriend.

Teenage Kicks: But there's another one?

Captain Sensible: Yeah...

Teenage Kicks: And she doesn't mind?

Captain Sensible on the cover of Record Mirror

Captain Sensible: No, she does mind. I'm going home to a very unusual domestic arrangement. It's going to be difficult. I love Rachel, me official girlfriend.

Teenage Kicks: How did you meet Rachel?

Captain Sensible: She worked with me for three years as a backing singer.

Teenage Kicks: She's on "Happy Talk," isn't she?

Captain Sensible: Yeah. We went all over Europe doing those stupid songs. One day we were having a drink in a pub, sort of holding hands and giggling, and we started kissing. Neither of us had really thought about it, but we were very fond of each other.

Teenage Kicks: And you have three children?

Captain Sensible: Yeah. Fred, Daisy, and Syd — after Syd Barrett.

Teenage Kicks: I've heard that you live in Brighton now. And Brian James has moved there as well, hasn't he?

Captain Sensible: That's right! Isn't that great? It's really good to have him there because Brian likes to drink, and so do I.

Teenage Kicks: Could you ever work with Brian again?

Captain Sensible & the Softies

"Jet Boy, Jet Girl" 45 (Polydor 1978)

Captain Sensible: Brian likes things to be done his own way. And Brian's ideas are very rock 'n' roll. In fact, he uses that expression quite a lot. And I detest rock 'n' roll. I remember when we did that Final Damnation thing... We were sitting in the studio, and Brian was mixing the stuff he played guitar on. He set the control desk up, and he said, "Right, nobody touch those controls." And the engineer said, "No fading up the guitar for the guitar solo?" Brian said, "No." He said, "No effects?" Brian said, "No. Nothing. That's it. Rock 'n' roll." I was kind of shocked. When it got to the second half of Final Damnation, where I'm playing guitar, I was putting all sorts of effects on, turning up the guitar for solos, all that! That's what you do in a studio; you make it sound as good as possible. But I remember thinking at the time that I couldn't work with Brian, not with that attitude. But I do like him as a bloke.

Teenage Kicks: What's been the most fun gig on this tour?

Captain Sensible: I liked all the gigs in New York. We played Coney Island High. It was a dive, but it had a really good atmosphere. It was really small. We played it for four nights. Good people who run it; they kept coming down with pitchers of Sam Adams for us.

Teenage Kicks: How many shows are you doing?

Captain Sensible: We've played 40 dates, at least. We've been all over the place!

Poster for "Smash It Up!" 
(Chiswick/EMI 1979)

Teenage Kicks: I'd like to talk a little bit about the pre-Damned history. Were you guys friends before the group formed?

Captain Sensible: I knew Rat. He lived in Croydon, same as I did. We worked together. He was a floor cleaner with a mop and bucket, and I was a toilet cleaner at a concert hall. And he went off one day to answer an advertisement in the Melody Maker. It was Brian's ad.

Teenage Kicks: What did it say? Something like "drummer wanted..."

Captain Sensible: Oh, God no! I didn't see it myself, but he might have used the expression kickass. "Kickass rock 'n' roll band!"

Teenage Kicks: And that was the advert for the Damned?

Captain Sensible: Yeah. Rat came back the next day with all his hair cut off, and he said they were looking for a bass player. I was a guitarist at the time, but I went to see Brian, and I had me hair chopped off. The funny thing was, all the people hanging around Portobello Road and Kilburn, which is where Brian lived, all used to hang out and drink in the same bars — people like Tony James, Billy Idol, some of the Pistols and the Clash, Chrissie Hynde, Lemmy... So, for a while, we had a line-up which was Chrissie Hynde on guitar, me on bass, Rat on drums, and Dave on vocals. We did three rehearsals like that, and then it was back to Brian. So, everything was kind of in the melting pot. Very interesting days, they were. We had to carry the drums and guitars on the top of a double-decker bus. We didn't have the money to hire a cab or get a van.

Teenage Kicks: Living in Croydon, were you and Rat aware of what was happening in London?

Vote for Captain Sensible!

Captain Sensible: There was nothing happening in London! What I mean is, we didn't know there was something going on in London because it wasn't in the music papers. What was happening in London was completely underground. The punk thing was very... not hush-hush, but it was only happening in this one little area. So, I had no idea until I went up there.

Teenage Kicks: I've also just recently learned that the Softies were your band. I've heard about this group, but I don't really know anything about them.

Captain Sensible: Hmmm... The Softies weren't actually my band. When the Damned split up [for the first time in 1977], Brian told us in his wisdom, "Right, that's it. The Damned's finished. I'm going on to do better things." I remember I went to see Abba: The Movie that day. I sat in the cinema and cried all the way through it. Being chucked out of the group and Abba's lovely songs just made me blub. So, I went over to see my friend Big Mick in Amsterdam. He'd been our roadie for a while. He had a band called the Softies, and he offered to put me up if I played guitar for him. So, I went over and played guitar for his band. We did quite a few gigs in Germany and Holland and stuff. And we did two singles. One was called "Killing Time in Soho," which had got Mick singing and me playing guitar. The other one was "Jet Boy/Jet Girl," which is me singing. I got paid £100 for that. I told him not to release it in Britain, but of course, they lied to me, and it was.

Teenage Kicks: Why didn't you want it released in Britain?

Captain Sensible: Because it's got rude lyrics.

Teenage Kicks: So what?

Captain Sensible's first solo album

Women and Captains First (A&M 1982)

Captain Sensible: Well... My parents... My relatives are Catholics. My auntie is Catholic. She's very strict on it.

Teenage Kicks: They must have known about the Damned! Taking your clothes off onstage doesn't bother them?

Captain Sensible: Umm... They didn't see that, to be honest.

Teenage Kicks: Wouldn't just the name of the group bother them?

Captain Sensible: No, I mean... I'm a nice bloke, so... Whenever they did come to see us, we toned it down a little bit.

Teenage Kicks: You kept your clothes on!

Captain Sensible: Yeah! Ha! Ha!

Teenage Kicks: It sounds like you're pretty close to your parents.

Captain Sensible: I've got one parent left, me dad, and we're very close. He's a lovely bloke. He lives around the corner from us. He makes me brew beer for him; I've got a little home brewing concern going. I make exceptionally good beer, I must say. If I'm good at anything, I'm a bit of a connoisseur of beer.

Teenage Kicks: What's your favorite beer?

Advert for the Damned's first 45 
"New Rose" c/w "Help" (Stiff Records 1976)

Captain Sensible: In America, I think me favorite is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which I actually saw in Safeway around the corner. It's bloody good! My second favorite is Wild Goose Amber Ale from Maryland. The third would be Sam Adam's Boston Lager. Very nice.

Teenage Kicks: Any plans to bottle your own?

Captain Sensible: No, it's a bit of a chore. I bung it in a barrel.

Teenage Kicks: Did your father ever tell you to get a real job?

Captain Sensible: Definitely! Yes! I was going to become a cartographic draftsman.

Teenage Kicks: Like maps?

Captain Sensible: Maps, yeah. And involved with street planning, town planning, stuff like that.

Teenage Kicks: That would have been a good job.

Captain Sensible: Yeah, I would've loved it. But I couldn't get the mathematics exam. I just couldn't do it. I had plenty of other qualifications but that one eluded me, unfortunately. But I've got a house full of maps. Drawers and cupboards full of them! What a boring bloke I am.

Teenage Kicks: Well, I'd just like to say that I'm happy to see you and Dave back together. You've made me very happy!

Captain Sensible: Ah, how nice. That's lovely.

* * *

You can read my teen 'zine Damned questionnaire here:  devorahostrov.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-damned-british-punk-sensations

You can also read my 1984 interview with the Damned's Dave Vanian and Roman Jugg here:  devorahostrov.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/the-damned-rendezvous-at-alice-in-wonderland